tutts23

Q: Watch os3 series 1 dead battery by afternoon

Hello,

 

I've updated my Apple Watch Series 1 to use watchOS 3, the process took a fair while, the Watch app on my iPhone 6 said it was downloading "20 minutes remaining" then "2 days remaining", then my watch died around 3pm (watchOS 2.x), I thought because it kept trying to poll it or something it just died.. fine no worries. Plugged it in when I got home, charged and started the update again, tried to add some apps to the watch while it was updating but they failed, os update eventually went through.

 

Then first day of using watchOS 3 my battery died again, roughly around the same time as when I tried to update it, baring in mind it usually lasts all day with around 40-50% depending on if I went to the gym that morning.

 

Now this morning, from full 100% charge its down to 90% within the first hour, and now 80% an hour and half later.

 

I've removed all the apps from the dock, restart etc to see if that helps, no luck.

 

Anyone getting the same issues?

 

Cheers,

Sam

Watch Stainless Steel 42MM (1st gen), watchOS 3

Posted on Sep 16, 2016 1:46 AM

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Q: Watch os3 series 1 dead battery by afternoon

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  • by FrostyOfTheNorth,

    FrostyOfTheNorth FrostyOfTheNorth Sep 29, 2016 8:29 PM in response to tutts23
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Sep 29, 2016 8:29 PM in response to tutts23

    I have the same issue.  My Apple Watch's (original version) battery used to last all day, no problem.  I'd have 20-30% battery left at the end of the day.

     

    Since watchOS 3, it's been getting insanely worse.  Some days the watch is dead by 5 PM, even with me doing nothing on it other than checking messages as they come in and the time occasionally.

     

    I've Googled and tried the suggestions I've found:

     

    - removed watch faces that I don't use.  (I've only ever used one, not sure why so many were active.)

    - removed as many apps as possible from the dock.

    - turn off background syncing.

     

    That only made a small difference.  My watch still doesn't last the day on watchOS 3.

     

    Apple, are you listening?

  • by Dr Filet,

    Dr Filet Dr Filet Oct 1, 2016 4:53 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Oct 1, 2016 4:53 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth

    I have/had the same issue

    - After upgrading to OS3 and getting an iPhone 7+, my watch would lose 15% per hour.  Start the day at 100%, and be dead by lunch

    - Spoke to Apple, and we unpaired/repaired the watch.  No help

    - Apple sent me a new watch (thank you Apple Care!) and set it up as a new watch (no backup restore).  No good, and it got worse.  The watch started shutting down and freezing on the Apple logo after 2 days

    - Had a Genius Bar appointment this afternoon, and they were limited on what they can do.  They recommended that I leave the watch to be sent back to Apple to diagnose (3 to 5 days)

    - In the meantime, I sent a error log from a back-up (as a zip file) to Apple so that the Engineers can take a long look at the data.  I will know more on this next week

    - The Genius Bar associates (yea, 2 were working on it) had a recommendation

         - Unpair the watch

         - Completely erase the watch

         - Restore the phone to factory settings and redownload all of the firmware

         - Restore the phone from a back-up (alternate is a complete reinstall, which was my last resort)

         - Repair the watch as a "new watch" and do not load any apps besides what comes with it

         - Do not load any phone apps until the watch has tested out as "good" for a few days

    I am happy to report that the watch is now only using 1% per hour with minimal use (no exercise)


    Entire process took less than 2 hours

     

    The theory is that since the watch gets the firmware from the phone, my OS3 download/update on the phone was bad.  That was transferred to the watch and caused all of the problems.  It could have been my process, or Apple could have had a bad file out there

     

    I hope this works, and post if you try it with success yourself?

  • by Dr Filet,

    Dr Filet Dr Filet Oct 3, 2016 8:04 PM in response to Dr Filet
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Oct 3, 2016 8:04 PM in response to Dr Filet

    Day 2 after the "fix" = NO good.  The watch drains 8-10% per hour

     

    Still looking for a fix that will last

  • by FrostyOfTheNorth,

    FrostyOfTheNorth FrostyOfTheNorth Oct 3, 2016 8:33 PM in response to Dr Filet
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Oct 3, 2016 8:33 PM in response to Dr Filet

    I wonder if the issue is caused by specific apps?  I'm completely speculating here, but perhaps certain apps that were designed for watchOS 2 are causing battery issues with watchOS 3 and that's why some of us are having these problems but others aren't?

     

    I sure wish someone from Apple would reply to this thread.

  • by Dr Filet,

    Dr Filet Dr Filet Oct 4, 2016 4:54 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Oct 4, 2016 4:54 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth

    Doubtful, since I wipe and reloaded the watch with only the factory apps

  • by FrostyOfTheNorth,

    FrostyOfTheNorth FrostyOfTheNorth Oct 4, 2016 7:51 PM in response to Dr Filet
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Oct 4, 2016 7:51 PM in response to Dr Filet

    Ah, right.

     

    What's Apple telling you now?

  • by Dr Filet,

    Dr Filet Dr Filet Oct 4, 2016 8:02 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Oct 4, 2016 8:02 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth

    Sent them an error log from the computer a few days ago, and was finally able to send one from the watch a few hours ago.  They sent me an app to put on the watch, but it would not load.  The engineers are looking into this, and watching our comments.  No news yet, but they are aware and want to fix it quickly

     

    I will talk with them tomorrow (spoke for a while this evening)

  • by FrostyOfTheNorth,

    FrostyOfTheNorth FrostyOfTheNorth Oct 5, 2016 8:45 AM in response to Dr Filet
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Oct 5, 2016 8:45 AM in response to Dr Filet

    Thanks for the update.  Hopefully they figure it out soon.  Please post back with any progress.

  • by jpfii,

    jpfii jpfii Oct 5, 2016 5:24 PM in response to tutts23
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Oct 5, 2016 5:24 PM in response to tutts23

    Did you ever figure this out? My watch lasts about 8 hours, sometimes more (if its not connected to my phone at all and is searching for it) mostly less (around 6 hours). Very frustrating. I updated it as soon as the new OS3 came out, and all of a sudden, in the last week, without changing anything, it lasts as long as a remote control car did back in the day.

  • by jpfii,

    jpfii jpfii Oct 5, 2016 5:27 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Oct 5, 2016 5:27 PM in response to FrostyOfTheNorth

    Yeah, I've had to remove, essentially, all functionality from my watch, in order to gain an hour or two to my watch's battery life, which makes it 8 hours.. at most. Ever figure this out?

  • by jpfii,

    jpfii jpfii Oct 5, 2016 6:02 PM in response to jpfii
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Oct 5, 2016 6:02 PM in response to jpfii

    For starters: I have a 42mm original Apple watch sport- Watch OS3 (about one month old);

     

     

    iPhone 6S Plus- iOS 10

     

     

    My apple watch lasts about 6-8 hours.. It really depends.

     

     

    I actually find that it lasts longer if I turn bluetooth off on my phone, and the watch merely searches for my phone all day. This makes me think that the problem may lie with iOS10, rather than WatchOS3.

     

     

    Here's a list of things I've done.

     

     

    1. I unpaired it, and booted it as new

    2. I added zero apps to it

    3. I get no notifications from anything

    4. No functions are enabled, at all.

    5. No complications on it

    6. No background app refresh

    7. Nothing on the memory that I can delete

    8. Zero docks

    9. Brightness is lowest

    10. Wake screen settings on minimum.

    11. Basically, name a function, I made it as small as possible or just turned it off or deleted it if I could.

    12. Even had an apple chat person do a diagnostics thingy with me to determine whether the battery is just f***ed, but they said its A.O.K. after doing all of this, I figured this might by the one area

     

     

    Essentially, my watch is a useless hunk of metal on my wrist, is able to last about 6-8 hours when connected to my phone, doing nothing. It lasts about ~10 hours with it doing nothing at all.

     

     

    Anyone have any idea on what the **** I should do?

     

     

    Are the Beta updates any good?

  • by JetEngr19,

    JetEngr19 JetEngr19 Oct 5, 2016 6:44 PM in response to jpfii
    Level 1 (28 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 5, 2016 6:44 PM in response to jpfii

    Try temporarily turning off location services on your iPhone. My iPhone 7 was having issues with location services and made my 32mm Watch drain it's battery at a rate of more than 10% per hour.

     

    One thing that I noticed when troubleshooting the Watch was my Usage time and Standby time were nearly the same. It was essentially telling me that my Watch was constantly in use, even though I was barely using it. Once I got the iPhone 7 issue resolved, the Watch battery life (and usage time) was back to normal.

  • by tutts23,

    tutts23 tutts23 Oct 6, 2016 12:44 AM in response to tutts23
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Apple Watch
    Oct 6, 2016 12:44 AM in response to tutts23

    Hello all,

     

    So a quick update here, after resetting the watch/disabling background refresh the problem still persisted, however a few days after the battery drain went back to normal, the only difference is I haven't been using it in the gym (no fitness app/stopwatch), and no Apple Pay (I'm in London so use it at least 6 times a day) - might be coincidental though.

     

    This continued for about 5days, then the battery drained significantly when I left my phone in the car outside the house, but both were in WIFI proximity, but that's the only problem I've had so far.

     

    I've enabled background refresh this week, and I'll add Apple Pay back onto the watch, to see how it goes. Then next week I'll start using it in the gym again. So far so good though, super strange.

  • by Dr Filet,

    Dr Filet Dr Filet Oct 6, 2016 5:29 PM in response to Dr Filet
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Oct 6, 2016 5:29 PM in response to Dr Filet

    Spoke yesterday, and no help

     

    On the phone again right now running more diagnostics

     

    More to come

  • by jpfii,Apple recommended

    jpfii jpfii Oct 6, 2016 5:41 PM in response to Dr Filet
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Oct 6, 2016 5:41 PM in response to Dr Filet

    Hey guys! I have a fix! Its different than I expected!

     

    So, I've been on the phone with apple engineers, in chat with engineers, and met with a couple of genies and an engineer at the apple store in Chicago. After multiple people all looking at my diagnostics and to no avail what the drainage of my battery is, this one kinda random guy working there, and interested in the problem suggested a new idea after we all agreed that it seemed like the actual iPhone was the source of the problem:

     

    FIX: On my iPhone, running iOS10 > Settings > General > Reset > 1. Reset All Settings (this will cause you to have to tweak all of the settings and lose your wallpaper, kinda annoying) 2. Reset Network Settings (wifi and other stuff will be lost).

     

    DO A BACK-UP BEFORE YOU DO THIS.

     

    Of course, they had me do it all on my own, because they couldn't tell me that I had to do it, but, it worked. My watch was blowing through 8-12% of my battery life every hour, but since I did this, 3 hours ago, I've lost 6% of my battery. This is also after installing  a bunch of apps, and re-enabling background app refresh and notifications too!!

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